Sales Coaching

Why more advisors should hire a sales coach and consultant

Without more meetings, who will you showcase your amazing platform to? Without more prospects in your pipeline, how will you grow your practice? What will be the consequences to you and your team if you don't grow? Is waiting around for referrals from clients and centers of influence a predictable growth methodology to hang your hat on? If you don't have clear answers to these questions, then we need to talk!

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☛ Why Sales Coaching?

Neuroscientist Gregory Berns has explained "A person can have the greatest idea in the world - completely different and novel - but if that person can't convince enough other people, it doesn't matter."

Research by the Sales Executive Council shows that no other productivity or marketing investment comes even close to coaching in improving a professional's performance pertaining to growth. Yet, service providers spend thousands of dollars on expensive websites, brochures, technology platforms, search engine optimization, blog writing, and peer group discussions to grow their practice.

The end result? Many advisors growing at less than 10% annually, or even worse, throwing in the towel, laying off talented planners from their team, merging with advisory firms unwillingly, giving up their hard-earned independence, or being bought out prematurely.

A sales coach brings in an outsider's perspective inside your practice, providing a third party, unbiased viewpoint of your team and how you operate as sales professionals. He or she also compares you to the industry benchmark of growth, which is comprised of years of research and observation of best practices in sales strategies within your particular industry.

With a full understanding of what you're doing right and where the potential weaknesses are, a good sales coach will be able to work with you and your firm to bridge the gap and help you become extremely competitive to win and maintain more business.

☛ Who is a good candidate for the Select Advisors Sales Coaching Program?

Let's be hypothetical:

You are introduced to a wealthy prospect at a charity event or wedding, sit down for lunch with a trust and estate lawyer your client introduced you to, or meet a well-known celebrity on the line at the grocery story. You start with some average small talk and then...

…Do you know how to convert that interaction into a business meeting? Or do you go on and on talking about the food at the restaurant, talk sports, or ask about their purchase at the register? And at the end get the typical "It was nice meeting you" comment, and separation?

Alternatively, you went to college with someone who now runs a hedge fund, presumably making around $5 to $10mm a year. Do you know how to get a meeting with him, and convert him into a client (he manages money for living, after all)?

You receive a referral from a current client, only to start the runaround chase to get him to actually schedule the meeting. How can you stop looking pathetic and take the driver's seat in this situation?

Or...You have meeting after meeting with qualified prospects, but none of them want to take a second meeting. Do you know what you may be doing wrong in the meetings to not move it to the next step?

The list goes on and on with situations that can be improved to help you grow your practice as a financial advisor.

Networking, prospecting, and inspiring action — with charisma, charm, passion and endless curiosity — is possibly the most important skill a wealth manager who is looking to grow his or her practice can have. And if we can’t communicate to others effectively how our practice is different, how business development is important to us, or how unique our personal story is....

well, we just get left behind and let the other power advisors dominate.

Anyone can develop the "people skills" that can lead to a larger, more powerful network. You Just Have To Know How!

I see it all the time as a sales coach. People with amazing life backgrounds and years of experience...and they can't articulate themselves effectively or show their value proposition even if a billionaire walked right in front of them. It's painful for me to watch sometimes!

It doesn't matter how great your platform is or how good you are at building portfolios if you cannot converse effectively and convert a conversation into a business development conversation.

The problem is that most advisors who can't grow their practice believe one of two things:

That sales skills are something to be learned from a binder or in a book, and all they need is a data-oriented process

That networking effectively, being charismatic, or even worst, being a business developer is something that one is simply “born with”

Neither of these are true. Conversations and sales are creative exercises, which therefore require skills and habits of the creative brain, not the logical brain (this is why many CFA's and portfolio managers tend to hate sales — they’re always being too logical!)

And like anything else — learning to play the piano or singing — social interactions and sales are something that must be practiced and improved.

When You Sign Up For The ‘Select Advisors Sales Coaching Program’ You Will Learn Directly from Amy Parvaneh:

Our process to start a conversation with anyone, anywhere

Our process to immediately gauge if someone you are speaking with can be a good business connection (either as a prospect or as an influencer)

Our proven process to make your story interesting and exciting, as well as specific exercises to practice it

Our methodology to convert your casual conversation into a business conversation

Our research tools to help you uncover more opportunities around any prospect or client

Our formula for one thing you need to do daily, one thing you need to do weekly, and one thing you need to do monthly to utilize these exercises to help you grow your practice

☛ How do you select a sales coach? Ask yourself, would I hire this person as my advisor if I was a prospective investor?

A sales coach is ONLY, repeat ONLY, as good as the coach behind it. If you have respect for the person coaching you, and want to emulate his/her style and approach to growth, you should hire that coach. If the coach irks you, or their style is unrealistic, trust your personal judgement.

At the same time, a sales coach should differ in their strategy from yours. Otherwise, you would be repeating the same pattern of growth, which is most probably not as ideal as you'd like.

Another way to see if you want to work with a sales coach is to see how fast they have grown their own sales coaching practice. If someone is a good sales coach, they can also sell their own business! If they have been in business for 10 years as a sales coach and still working with only 10-20 advisors, that's not a good sign. (Since launching 3 years ago, Select Advisors currently works on an ongoing basis with advisors whose collective AUM is $70 billion!)

☛ What are the credentials you should look for in a coach?

Some factors you should look for in a coach are:

Their track record within your own industry

If they will be the person actually coaching you. Typically, most sales coaching firms will pass you on to a junior sales coach who barely knows anything about your industry, and was previously a pharmaceutical sales rep or real estate agent. If you will be passed on to a junior sales coach, you want to find out what is the selection process for becoming a junior coach at this firm

The education and schooling of the coaches

The way they carry themselves. If you were a potential client, would you select this person as your financial advisor? Why or why not?

Are they ethical?

Do they understand the investment industry on a very technical level?

☛ Why Select Advisors as a Sales Coach?

Reason 1: For starters, every advisor who works with us gets the opportunity to be coached directly or indirectly by Amy Parvaneh, our founder and CEO. While Amy has a team of lieutenants keeping our clients on track through our accountability systems, check-in processes, and specific topic seminars, each and every one of our clients gets to know Amy on a personal level, and develops an on-going relationship with her.

Reason 2: We are not just coaches, we are sales managers. Unlike most coaches who sugarcoat their discussions with you and tell you what you want to hear, we are big proponents of being as transparent as possible with you. We have no qualms challenging you on your views on yourself or the approach you take with a prospective clients. Sometimes, our discussions can become quite heated, so be prepared! We like to keep our clients on their toes for their own benefits.

Reason 3: We understand the investor mindset, because we are still working with them! Unlike most sales coaches you hear at conferences who speak at 100 miles an hour and sounds like a used car salesman, we take great pride in having been investment professionals ourselves, having worked with billionaires and multi-millionaires. We know what really works in the real world, and are still intimately involved in working with high net worth individuals through our various other projects, including our membership-only educational clubs for wealthy investors.

Reason 4: We don't just talk theory. During our one-on-one coaching sessions, you will have your computer in front of you, and will be sending emails to prospects, finding prospective clients in real time, going through your calendar of lunch appointments, maintaining your CRM, updating your social medial presence, and systematizing your meetings with COI's. While we want to motivate and invigorate you, we think that implementation is by far more important than theory.

Reason 5: We are investment professionals first, marketers next. Our founder and CEO taught derivatives and risk management as a faculty professor. She understands the investments world extremely well. Why is this important? By knowing full well the needs and objections of clients, together we can decide how to find the best solutions for them, not only from high level, but from a granular, product level that would satisfy their needs.